How To See the Armory Show in One Hour Flat

Of the dozen Manhattan art fairs opening their doors to the public this afternoon, only one lends its name to this so-called Armory Arts Week. Now in its seventeenth year, the Armory Show is the mothership of the satellite fairs, each of which goes to great pains to differentiate itself. If Armory Arts Week were New York Fashion Week—just bear with me—then the ADAA Art Show would be Oscar de la Renta, Pulse would be Proenza Schouler, and Independent would be Rodarte. (It’s fitting that Center548 is this year’s location for both.) For magnitude and showmanship, the Armory Show would be Marc Jacobs.

Navigating the massive Armory Show can be exasperating, but also highly amusing. For every ten Kehinde Wiley portraits that have been lugged to Pier 94 in an attempt to capitalize on the artist’s Brooklyn Museum retrospective, there is one delightful artist named Darvish Fakhr riding around on a mechanically propelled “flying carpet” (part of a performance piece called The Whirring Dervish). For every time you notice a New York gallery presenting overflow stock from its current show down the road in Chelsea, you will also be charmed to notice birds chirping in the rafters above, like Maurizio Cattelan sculptures come to life, threatening to deface the art below.

The Armory Show offers the good, the bad, and the marvelously ridiculous. Here, a guide to getting in and out of its contemporary section at Pier 94 in one hour or less.

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Hank Willis Thomas, #ArtsyTakeover, 2015

The #ArtsyTakeover of the Armory Show is as overtly corporate as any sponsorship can be, which is why it’s refreshing to see Hank Willis Thomas’s installation, commissioned by Artsy, positioned front and center at Pier 94. It displays the words Life, Ads, and Art, which, when seen via an iPhone photograph, reveal a repeating string of connected words: “Life Imitates Ads Imitate Art Imitates Life . . .” A spade’s a spade.

Photo: Christophe Tedjasukmana/Courtesy of McClelland and Co.

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El Anatsui, Adinkra Sasa, 2003

To see more Hank Willis Thomas, head down the hall to the right of the main entrance to Jack Shainman’s enormous booth. There, he has brought not only a 2015 Willis Thomas fiberglass sculpture called Liberty, but also two monumental tapestries by Ghananian artist El Anatsui. The larger of the two, a massive quilt of black metal liquor wrappers, copper wire, and other found objects, is a highlight.

Head back down the hall to David Zwirner’s central booth, where two Karla Black sculptures are beautifully suspended. Seen just after El Anatsui’s work, they are a feminine answer to his masculine heft, and equally effective.

Photo: Courtesy of David Zwirner, New York/London

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William J. O'Brien, Untitled, 2013

Next door is Marianne Boesky, where, in addition to three museum-quality Frank Stella wall sculptures, there are more than a dozen glazed ceramics by William J. O’Brien, all of which are fabulous. It’s a shame they’re sold separately; taken together, they evoke a ragtag army.

Nick van Woert, Journey to the Surface of the Earth (Boyle Family), 2014

Head down the main aisle to OHWOW, where Nick van Woert has put sheets of American pine bark, steamed flat, in shiny steel frames that look a whole lot more interesting than most of the abstract, process-obsessed paintings that sell so well right now. Even better are the pieces of Lucite furniture he made for OHWOW’s booth. They are filled with synthetic and chemical materials (cat litter, aquarium gravel, detergent, et cetera), great foils to the tree bark hanging just above.

Photo: Courtesy of the Artist and OHWOW, Los Angeles

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Brian Bress, 370 Cover, 2015

A few booths back, Los Angeles gallery Cherry and Martin has hung two single-channel video pieces by L.A.–based artist Brian Bress. Gentle and visually seductive in the way that children’s television programs tend to be, they are both mesmerizing.

Photo: Courtesy of Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles

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André Kertész, Distortion #91 with Self Portrait, 1933

Nearby, at Bruce Silverstein’s booth, there is a fascinating print of an André Kertész photograph from 1933 called Distortion #91 with Self Portrait. It’s small and hard to find—on Wednesday, it was tucked around the corner in an ancillary room—but worth sleuthing out.

At the other end of the fair, opposite from Jack Shainman’s booth, is the curated Focus section of the fair, which this year has MENAM (Middle East, North Africa, Mediterranean) in its sights. Most of the works here fall flat, making Incarnation, a work of real red carnations stuffed like hay bales by Cypriot artist Socratis Socratous, stand out all the more.